Garbage characters in string

Question

I've written code to make a right pyramid out a character.

However, when I execute the program, the last two lines of the pyramid have garbage characters placed after them even when it exceeds the size of the array.

The code is here:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

#define ROW 5
int main(void) {
  char array[ROW];
  int x = 0;
  int row = 0;

  for (row = 0; row < ROW; row++) {
    array[x] = 'a';
    if (x < ROW) {
      printf("%s\n", dolla);
    }
    x++;
  }
  getchar();
}

Where are the garbage characters coming from? It's only on lines after the third.

Answer 1

The problem in your code is that you have not terminated your string with \0 (null) character. Here's a workout for your code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define ROW 5
int main(void)
{
char array[ROW];
int x = 0;
int row = 0;


for(row = 0; row < ROW; row++)
{
array[x] = 'a';

    if(x < ROW)
    {
        array[x+1]='\0';
        printf("%s\n", array);
    }
x++;
}

getchar();
}

I'm no specialist, but I've read the following in many typical C books: int arrays in C are initialized to 0, while char arrays are initialized to garbage.

And yeah, forgot to mention, it's no dolla, it's array.